All my experiences, bugs, hacks, tricks, ... with CentOS and Linux in general.

Thursday, July 30, 2009

What is up with the CentOS project

Some people may have noticed the open letter to Lance Davis that has appeared on the CentOS website (www.centos.org) or the CentOS mailing list (http://lists.centos.org/pipermail/centos/2009-July/079767.html). Some people may also noticed that the project was not running as it should lately. Since it is in the open now I can talk about all this. These are my personal opinions about this issue.

I only joined the project a little more then two years ago, so I'm was not personally involved in the start of the CentOS project. Lance is one of the co-founders of the project. I really would like to thank Lance, and the other co-founders, for their work and getting this great project started. But from the time I got involved in the project things have gone from bad to worse with Lance.

Now, I don't know him or what is going on at his end. So I'm only going to report facts here and leave the interpretation of these to you, dear reader.

The first issue is that Lance basically is not actively involved in the project anymore. He attends meetings irregularly. If he was present and was asked certain things, he usually said that he need to look that up or he will do that later. But that never happened. And next to the meetings we do not see or hear from him at all.

The second issue is that Lance has registered the centos.org domain using one of his companies and that the rest of the team has no control of it. He is the only one who can make changes to it. It is not registered to he project itself. He recently even put a anonymiser service on the domain, meaning that people can no longer see the real owner of the domain.

The third issue is that Lance is the only one who has access to the PayPal and Google AdSense accounts that are used on the CentOS websites. This basically means that all money that comes in through those channels went directly to him, not to the project. We again have no control over it.We repeatably asked Lance for a overview of the finances of the project, but he never showed that to the rest. We have no idea how much money flowed into the project.

These three issues basically means that the project depends to much on one person and that a lot of things are invisible for the project and the community. And this is unacceptable. We need to be transparent and Lance is preventing this. We asked repeatably to correct these things in private. But he never did.

So we, the rest of the team, have said that this was enough. That is why the public letter was made and also why we removed, temporarily, the Google ads and the link to PayPal from the CentOS website.

We still like to make things right and give Lance the change to correct all this and open up. If not we will continue without him and get the project back on track. And yes, this might potentially mean that we loose the centos.org domain and all the money already received by the project through the ads and PayPal. This is also what I regret the most, that money that people have donated, thinking they are helping the project, flowed to 1 person. I sincerely apologize to everyone for this.

The open letter and thoughts of other team members can be found on the following none centos.org sites :

It is regrettable that we are forced to send this letter but we are left with no other options. For some time now we have been attempting to resolve these problems:

You seem to have crawled into a hole ... and this is not acceptable.

You have long promised a statement of CentOS project funds; to this date this has not appeared.

You hold sole control of the centos.org domain with no deputy; this is not proper.

You have, it seems, sole 'Founders' rights in the IRC channels with no deputy ; this is not proper.

When I (Russ) try to call the phone numbers for UK Linux, and for you individually, I get a telco intercept 'Lines are temporarily busy' for the last two weeks. Finally yesterday, a voicemail in your voice picked up, and I left a message urgently requesting a reply. Karanbir also reports calling and leaving messages without your reply.

Please do not kill CentOS through your fear of shared management of the project.

Clearly the project dies if all the developers walk away.

Please contact me, or any other signer of this letter at once, to arrange for the required information to keep the project alive at the 'centos.org' domain.

If he is alone, the project is open source and the only problem is the domain. Group together, take the project on your shoulders and move it to a new domain no? Like newcentos.org .... centos is well known everyone on the web will know it in less than 1 day. Unless there are other legal implications to the brand or something like that, I do not see the problem.

Well, I don't know Lance, but I do know some of the guys who signed the letter and they are far from "script kiddies" - you need to hang out with them to get to know them. I just hope this is all sorted as most of what these people do is for the passion and on their own time and money.

What you have is a business problem. Set up a non-profit corp, vote yourselves as officers, take legal ownership of the "distribution", then send a legal request to the domain owner to request transfer of the domain to the legal non-profit.

#1 simply demands the same level of integrety and professionalism that corporations exhibit. Say, for example, AIG, Madoff Investment Securities, Countryside Mortgage Company, or any number of well run organizations with exceptionally competent CEOs.

I think you may well be wrong that Lance is the "owner" of CentOS. It's more likely that CentOS is, legally, more akin to a partnership albeit one of the worst types possible - where nobody has formalised things properly.

Lance is not, alas, without previous form for such things both in the Open Source world and, prior to that, in business.

It would be interesting to find out exactly "what" has been done to contact Lance and how long indeed he has been MIA.

I have had to deal with "needy developers" that can't function without your voice on the phone at least every few days. Maybee he's on vacation without e-mail? Maybee he's got something going on in his life.

If he's avoiding you there obviously are some problems that are not being discussed. Sending an "open letter" like this with the intent of humiliating him publicly is only going to make matters worse. Many people don't respond well to "power grabs".

Instead of looking at Lance as the problem why not take a good hard look at yourselves. As a CentOS user I certainly don't want to see this project fragment into 5 or 6 obscure and less useful projects when one would have done just fine. Please guys for the sake of the user community work your issues out.

This really reminds me of the late boxtorrents... they moved to a new doamin and name, so you can guess how the things turned out to be.

I hope it is not so, but especially the refusal to clarify the finances is fishy (idk, maybe in both cases, the admins tried to use the money to get some quick profit and return them before anyone notices but it went wrong... whatever).

I found your blog on google and read a few Thanks for the information you mentioned here, I'm looking forward to see your future posts. Cheers !! Please come visit my site New Brunswick Businesses when you got time.

I am not really sure if best practices have emerged around things like that, but I am sure that your great job is clearly identifed. I was wondering if you offer any subscription to your RSS feeds as I would be very interested and can’t find any link to subscribe here. Please come visit my site Local Business Directory Of Anchorage U.S.A. when you got time.

Me and my friend were arguing about an issue similar to this! Now I know that I was right. lol! Thanks for the information you post. Please come visit my site Milwaukee City Directory when you got time.

You may have not intended to do so, but I think you have managed to express the state of mind that a lot of people are in. The sense of wanting to help, but not knowing how or where, is something a lot of us are going through. Please come visit my site San Diego Yellow Page Business Directory when you got time.

You may have not intended to do so, but I think you have managed to express the state of mind that a lot of people are in. The sense of wanting to help, but not knowing how or where, is something a lot of us are going through. Please come visit my site Local Business Directory Of San Diego U.S.A. when you got time.

Well, nice article buddy… Someone will love to read this infor if I tell her about this. She’s really interested in this subject. Thanks again… Please come visit my site baby health guide when you got time.

I found your site on google, great site, keep it up. Will return in the future. Submitted this post to Google News Reader. Please come visit my site Columbus Business Services And Classifieds when you got time.

Excellent article , i just share it with my friend of Italy. I Stumble UP your blog post , you will notice an increase of traffic within 24 hours for targeted people. Cheers . Please come visit my site csharp tutorial give me any valuable feedbacks.

You share valuable information and excellent design you got here! I would like to thank you for sharing your thoughts and time into the stuff you post!! Thumbs up. Please come visit my site compare broadband when you got time.

Do you want to get the most popular sports accessories? Please click our website, we offer many kinds of fashionable Air Jordan Shoes, NFL Jerseys, MBT Shoes, Nike TN and Puma Shoes Men , especially in NFL Jerseys, you will find more than thousand kinds of jerseys in our store. We guarantee the best quality and the best service for every consumer. If you are interest in, please feel free to contact us, we will reply you as soon as possible.

This is good site to spent time on .I just stumbled upon your informative blog and wanted to say that I have really enjoyed reading your very well written blog posts. I will be your frequent visitor, that’s for sure.cheap prom dresses 2010

Tiffany not only explored Silver Tiffanythe various jewelry processes of the timeTiffany Jewelry, but also branched out into new metals,Tiffany Online such as platinum, which at Tiffany Necklacethe time was considered very hard to manipulate.It seems Tiffany Braceletto be the case that unusual Tiffany Earringscolorations appealed to Tiffany, like the opalCheap Silver Jewelry.He also preferred gemstones that were either opaque or translucent.Cheap Designer Jewelry Turquoise, jade, carnelian, lapis, moonstones,Cheap Wholesale Jewelry and opals were all chosen for their ability to filter light. Emphasis basedCheap Bridal Jewelry on color was very prevalent in his works.Cheap Jewelry OnlineHe devoted hi s first year of jewelry making to mainly a Fashion Jewelry Onlinefocus towards forms and techniques, and only began to Discount Silver Jewelryreally put a collection together once he was satisfied with the fruits of his labor.Silver fashion JewelleryOnce Tiffany and Co.’s began to manufacture his jewelry, Discount Braceletsthere was a marked evolution in his pieces.Cheap Necklace His earlier pieces went from being made in a “hand-wrought” looking manner, to a much more symmetrical and stylized fashion. There was a great variety of jewelry that was produced during the 26 years that Louis Tiffany’s enameling and jewelry division was in operation at Tiffany & Co. It has been estimated that nearly 5,500 pieces were produced during that time, an impressive amount considering the detail and craftsmanship in each piece.He was produced the same high-quality artisanship that was very prized during the Arts and Crafts movement.